Category Archives: General

Our Veterinary Hospital Experience with the COVID-19 Pandemic

This an article I wrote for Veterinary Practice News about our hospital experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. Every veterinary clinic and hospital will have their own unique experience of this time, but I suspect much of this will look familiar … Continue reading

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John Oliver Nails Coronavirus BS!

John Oliver has often taken on anti-vaccine nonsense and pseudoscience of various kinds. His latest show provides a great takedown of some of the burgeoning myths and misinformation about SARS-CoV2 and COVID-19.

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Assisi Calmer Canine-What’s the Evidence for PEMF Treatment of Separation Anxiety?

I haver written about pulsed-electromagnetic field devices (PEMF) a couple of times before (1, 2). In my most recent review, I concluded: Despite the fact that there has been interest in the potential medical applications of electricity for over 150 years, … Continue reading

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Happy 10th Blogiversary to Me!

Hard to believe, but my first post, What is Open-Mindendess?, appeared June 4, 2009. Lots of things have changed in the ten years since I began this blog. My subjects and the tone of my writing are often different from … Continue reading

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Crowdfunding Quackery

One of the most heartbreaking things we all see on social media are appeals for financial help to fund medical treatment. Especially here in the U.S., where healthcare is less readily available to low-income people than in most developed countries, … Continue reading

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Hair and Saliva Test for Allergies are Worthless Pseudoscience

There is a lot of mythology out there about food allergies. The recent concern about the potential risks of grain-free diets is only an issue at all because such diets became wildly popular with no evidence that grains were a … Continue reading

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Evidence Update: Prolotherapy

Back in 2011 I wrote about a therapy popular with alternative practitioners called prolotherapy. I try to check in from time to time to see if there is any new evidence for the treatments I consider, and in doing so … Continue reading

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Evidence Update: Associations between Environmental Chemical Exposure and Hyperthyroidism in Cats

One of the great mysteries of veterinary medicine if hyperthyroidism in cats. Benign tumors of the thyroid glad in older cats can produce excessive amount of thyroid hormone, and this can lead to a host of clinical symptoms. Fortunately, the … Continue reading

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Evidence Update: Still no Convincing Scientific Evidence for any Benefits from Veterinary Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

It’s been a few years since I covered the subject of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), a treatment that involves placing patients in a sealed chamber and raising the air pressure and oxygen levels above those in the normal atmosphere at … Continue reading

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Misleading Caregiver Placebo Effects Occur with Cats as well as Dogs

I’ve written about placebo effects in animals several times. These appear in both clinical research studies and in real-world medical practice in many different ways. However, one of the most significant phenomena that fools us into thinking useless therapies are … Continue reading

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